Parentheses laden post

[Don't say you weren't warned]

Me and my pal Nick (not to be confused with Nic) (side bar: everyone I know is either called Nick/Nic or Dan and variations thereof which makes life confusing on a number of levels when most of these souls have little to do with one another and you have to explain that no, this is the Dan that's the alcoholic fuck-up that sent you to counseling and that is the Dan who is the wicked funny one with a penchant for Ricky Martin tunes and that happens to be the Dan that messed your best friend around about 17 times and is a total dick, etc etc ad infinitum). (This is why nicknames were invented). (I guess?)

Where was I?

Yes. NICK for the purposes of this blog known as 'gay husband' or to give him the name by which I actually call him to his face 'Bobbins' (long story. Does one ever grow out of calling people by their non-parent given names just to make it be a bit more insidery, and therefore more difficult, for anyone trying to get along with your 'group'? Particularly when you insist on calling them by their actual name, fake name, fake nickname, new name that probably won't catch on, in a random rotation so that no-one is ever 100 per cent sure of whom is being discussed at any given time? Will I grow out of that when I hit 27? NEXT MONTH HOLY SHIT I'M FREAKING THE FUCK OUT RIGHT NOW might I add) and I are both fans of these new-fangled celluloid motion pictures that all the kids are talking about ('they' say they'll be the next big thing but I'm yet to be convinced. I have my trusty puppet and shadow theater that caters to all my entertainment needs thank you very much). But yes, blah blah jokes, we watch a lot of films yet we rarely agree on what makes a good one. Unless it's foreign language in which case we do. And it's always that we like it (possibly because we don't really understand them so just pretend to like them for the sake of keeping up appearances? We're both Hyacinth Bucket enough for that to be a plausible hypothesis). Anyway, much like with crushes (which was on my mind today as I have a new girl crush - it has been so long since I've had a real-life girl crush I've changed dress size and hair colour about 16 times - and I was imagining us going on a date and her asking what celebrities I found attractive because, of course that is something that comes up in normal dating conversations, when you are 12, but I couldn't think of anyone. I'm always like, oh my god I LOVE him/her when other people mention their passions but these names never stick in my mind when I'm asked outright. I fill my walls with pictures of unicorns and Ethel Merman and, no disrespect to either of them, I like them but just not like that, so it's not even that I can do a mental sweep of hotty pictures about my palatial surroundings . Of course, if she was asking me when I was 12 to answer this question it'd be easy - Dean Cain and Joey Lawrence. Simple. Fast Forward centrefolds and cut-out thumbnail pics of both them adorned my abode), I can never think of films that are worse than the ones he comes up with when we have that argument (most recently Benjamen Button and Vicky Christina Barcelona, the latter of which he hasn't even seen b.t.dubs, have been the subject of our lively over-dinner conversation. Which, just to set the mood, was in an African-Latino restaurant soundtracked by your-dad-by-way-of-Chevy-Chase covering Keane songs? Seriously. Your Dad/Chevy came to each of the tables asking for requests and we wanted something by Hall & Oates but he didn't know any :( How is that even possible?) so the list that precedes is basically for my reference purposes and nothing you really have to worry your pretty little head about but like, it's there if you want to read/comment. Who am I? Blogging Hitler (like normal Hitler but fascist about blogs, not ethnicity). I am not blogging Hitler. I am blogging Sazz. Nice to meet you.

Anywho.

Crash
Paul Haggis is the worst writer of all time ever. No hyperbole, just science. That's the worst film I think my eyes have ever witnessed. This shit won an OSCAR? What?! HOW? Not for the screenplay though right? Because the screenplay was abominable... SHIT OFF! IT WON BEST PICTURE AND BEST SCREENPLAY?! This is not happening, this is NOT HAPPENING. I love a film that makes you think but all this did was make me think about blowing a hole in my head. Because really? Racism is bad. Oh yes, I see now, but maybe we are racist in ways we didn't even think about. (I am looking at you Sandra Bullock). And also racists can be nice because they sometimes pull Thandie Newton out of her car which has just crashed. And also Ryan Phillippe shoots people in the head occasionally for being mad about something but I forget what now. Awesome. Nailed it. Instead of a semester spent learning about social groups and their tendency towards prejudice and the wider implications of that using the Holocaust as a case study I should have just watched this film. Except I shouldn't because it was dumb and awful. I think it angers me so greatly because people told me this was good. It is not good. It is the opposite of good. It is ungood. That's how not good it is. I resent the fact I sat through this waiting for a pay off of some kind and never got it. Maybe the Academy was just giving out awards for being the worst that year? That'd make a lot of sense.

Match Point
Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Very attractive guy. Probably a lovely guy were you to meet him in person (who am I kidding, he looks like he'd be a dick to you). He cannot act. I cannot watch him on screen without cringing.
I tried to watch The Tudors the other day and I couldn't sit through more than 4 minutes of his wooden, HAS-to-be-reading-directly-off-the-cue-cards 'acting'. What's weird is that I saw this at the cinema alone and thought it was ok. I remember walking out thinking 'yeah, not great but pretty good' and then I watched it on DVD with someone else and couldn't get beyond him saying 'you have very sensual lips' to ScarJo and that was me done. Forever. JRM is outta my life. He was ok in Bend it Like Beckham right? Was I just too enamoured by his pretty pretty face back then? PastSazz sure is dumb.

Planet of the Apes
If you ever get the urge to cast Mark Walberg in a starring role then just take a step back, breathe deeply and ask yourself the following question what the fuck do I think I'm doing? And then, hopefully, we can all be saved from disasters like this.

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous
I'm sure I have spoken about this before. Let us not dredge up the past again but looky here, Sandra Bullock pops up again. I sense a theme.

Teen Monster
My friend Kes gets these weird crushes every now and then that make my face do this :S and Ryan Reynolds is currently top of that list. Which means we have to watch every Ryan Reynolds film. Including this one which was rated 18 (for no reason whatsoever except that maybe children shouldn't be privvy to this mess of a movie) and comes on a Sky Movies channel intermittently and basically is the oddest thing ever with things like Back to the Future references peppered throughout that make no contextual sense. It's a mess of a movie, which you know five minutes going in when Ryan is presented as a goth. No. Just... no.

Films I like that I know I probably shouldn't like
- The Hottie & the Nottie (I'm sorry I do. It's not 1.7/10 bad at any rate)
- The Lake House (I might even go so far as to purchase this on DVD. I really like it and not even in a 'so bad it's good' way but in a 'I like this' way. Even though I can see it's objectively bad. I don't know what to tell you!)
- Loads of stuff I could probably cop some shit for but I'm not necessarily embarrassed about.

Films I refuse to watch on the grounds of human taste and decency
- Most Kevin Spacey films. I kinda like him, I just think he seems to make really bad choices.
- White Chicks. Which Bobbins likes. I rest my case.

Who IS Nailin' Palin?

You guys, I totally have the hots for 'Ruskie no#1' in the (first of many I'm sure) Sarah Palin porno* 'Who's Nailin' Paylin?'


[For seriousballs, those special effects are OFF THE HOOK! Amirite?]

I NEVER fancy ANYONE in porn films. Ever! They're always a bit... well, porn starish (like the Sarah Palin-a-like and Ruskie no# 2 in fact). It's as inconceivable a concept to me as fancying someone in Hollyoaks. That sort of conventionally attractive type who wears a bit too much product in their hair and whose skin seems to have a fine layer of slime that only I appear able to see (why else DO people find the actors in Hollyoaks attractive? Apart from Justin of course. He was slightly chunky and gorgeous and did an awesome ice-skate/dance routine to 'Cry Me A River' in Celebrity Ice Skating/Dance Thing That's on ITV - You Know What I'm Talking About** and is therefore do-able).

I guess that's as good a reason as any to tell you who my top 5 crush object du jour are (in no particular order):

Seth Rogan

Long standing devotion to this one going ALL the way back to his turn in Freaks and Geeks. The love continues to grow (Pineapple Express was really really good). He's a great writer and performer (I loves me some talent), and funny. All I want for Christmas is a boyfriend who looks, acts, and sounds exactly like Seth Rogan (Jew-fro's FTW!). Is that so much to ask? Really?

Kat Dennings

She's really cool! I read her blog and she's just, really, really cool! She's so cool that I don't care that I sound like a fifteen-year-old when I discuss her!

Christina Hendricks

It's so weird to have a show where all my favourite characters are female but, ironically, Mad Men achieves this. Normally the girly parts (heh. 'Girly parts'... I'll shut up) are just a bit lame and one-dimensional but every single character on this show is complex and beautiful and ugly in all the ways that the people you know in the 'real world' are complex and beautiful and ugly. Christina Hendricks who plays Joan (getting to wear some of the most kick-ass outfits your eyes will ever see) tops the table of awesome. She's bitchy and knows too much about people and the way the world works and she understands the roles she has to play just to keep everything functioning effectively. I could talk about Joan and Mad Men all day but I won't because this is all about superficial beauty and HOLY SMOKES ain't she just INSANE amounts beautiful? It's b-a-n-a-n-a-s that she could be that perfect looking. I heart her lots.

Jermaine/Bret [it changes depending on my mood]
If there is a song with homoerotic undertones that won't make me fall instantly in love then I have yet to hear it.


Todd Stashwick

What do you mean you don't know who Todd Stashwick is?! He's Todd Stashwick! He's the king of the sitcom bit-part and for some reason I've seen most of these bit-parts in the last week which is why I'm reminded to include him on this list. I can think of about 18 different ways in which he is off-the-charts hot right now! Like, literally, I can list them off RIGHT THIS SECOND... if I wanted to. I'm pretty tired. He's just hot ok? Tall, hairy, balding a bit, and I could listen to his voice all day. He's just... Grr.

And, as for a bonus point - Rachel Maddow. Oh my god, you don't know who Rachel Maddow is? She's a pundit on MSNBC (yeeeah, I'm not sure how I know all this either). I actually, genuinely, do want to marry her. Anyone sarcastic and passionate and knows stuff about stuff is immediately well on their way to winning my heart for now and always. Watch her in full force:


* I don't know what's up with me and porn lately. It's possible I need to get out of the house more? Maybe? I don't know.

** Ooh... here we go! Boy can B-O-D-Y-P-O-P! If that's not a strong foundation to base a love affair on then I don't know what is. And, ohmygod, I'd forgotten he was always wearing eye liner and managed to not look like a TOTAL dick... swoon. Can I also say I LOVE the commentator; 'Dancing on Ice goes grunge'. Does it? To Mr JT? Are you... um... are you sure? It's not grunge in the... err... classical sense is it? Each to their own I suppose. I also have to say that EVERY time I hear 'Time of My Life' I always try and get Farr to run and leap into my arms like what Patrick and Baby do. We haven't managed it so far but we haven't attempted it in a swimming pool so don't rule us out yet.

Start as you mean to go on

Fuck me. It's 2008. How the hell did that happen? Ten years ago I was being an introspective teenager, obsessing over guys that didn't want me, being geeky about music and films, and generally *just* managing to navigate my way through the world with the few smarts and little wit I possessed.

How times change eh?

Except, I do feel like they have a bit. Don't get me wrong, all the above is still present and correct but it's all a little more refined now. I'm not quite as gauche, not nearly as naive, probably still quite self-centered but perhaps not as much as in years gone by... all in all I'm creeping ever slowly towards being a well rounded, sort of ok, human being. Ye gads.

However, this was due in large part thanks to 2007, for me, being all about introspection and getting my head together. Although that wasn't always a barrel of laughs (do laughs really come in barrels? Seems an odd place to keep a sound) it was important work. So much so that now, on the metaphorical life 'to do' list, I don't feel like I'm cheating too much putting a big tick in the 'done' column on the 'get head sorted out' row. But, what now? I think I've pretty much exhausted the existentialism route for the time being. If nothing else, going around like the non-obscenely foreheaded Dawson Leary is really tiring. So much so that you often forget to factor in that thing that, I believe the kids today refer to as 'fun'. So 2008 is going to be about fun. I want to get into scrapes and japes, make mistakes and something else that rhymes with those words, safe in knowledge that I'm going to be ok in the end. All that I've learned about how awesome I am can finally be put into practise. No more mooning over the cads that can't step up and treat me how I deserve to be treated, no more beating myself up for being such a tool whenever I come into contact with other people (the fact I walked away from my work Christmas do without any embarrassment over my behaviour - despite the fact I was fairly tipsy - can probably be classified as a low-grade miracle. I'm getting the Vatican in to double check on this as we speak) Yeah. I'm in a good place at the start of 2008. This is a weird experience for me so forgive me if I come across as a little smug. I exist much more comfortably within the confines of thinking I'm rubbish, it's going to take a while for me to get used to this new positivity. In fact, if I have any resolution at all it's to create a persona that can be positive and not come across as a twat. My gut tells me such a thing is not possible.

Now, I'm not really one for 'best ofs'. For one thing I have no real sense of time so remembering when this or that was released is really not all that viable where I am concerned. I also like to discover things in my own time and not just because a bunch of hipsters with asymmetric haircuts are telling me what I should like so the last few drops of pop culture I imbibed in 2007 were not exactly current but they were full of mind-nutrition and inspiration and I think that's probably more important.

Last book I read in 2007 - 'Girlfriend in a coma' by Douglas Coupland
I'm going through a bit of a Coupland obsession at present having come to him, despite awareness of his existence, more than a little late. This is a novel that's not just an achingly beautiful portrait of love and loss but raises itself above the usual odes to such things by also being a morality tale; a bible chapter for the disillusioned society we find ourselves existing in if you will. It's an audacious move for a writer, to tell the audience how badly they're fucking up, but it works. It asks questions that are normally never asked and make points about culture that we tend to just ignore on a day-to-day basis. I found it extremely inspiring and, like most great works of art, it made me feel connected to the world at large in a way I normally don't.

Last film - I'm Not There
I'm not a Dylan obsessive, hell I'm not even really what one would consider a Dylan fan. 'He's alright, I suppose' has always been my eloquent summation of the man. However, I loved this. This is not so much a film but rather feels like taking a walk around an art gallery and seeing an exhibition of paintings and installations done by someone who'd been listening to, and was inspired by, Bob Dylan's creative output and personal history. There was no cohesive structure, no explanation for why one set piece bled into another and no real commentary to help with the whats, whys and wherefores. Everything was just laid out in front of us leaving the audience to their own devices in lacing it all with meaning and interpretation. The intertextuality would keep the average muso and film buff happy for a whole week (particularly anyone into their pretentious film makers like Goddard and Fellini). I think I would have got even more out of it were I actually a Dylan lover myself as it was obviously jam-packed full of obscure Robert Zimmerman allusions and citations; most of which I suspect passed me by. The covers were also quite astonishing, my favourites being 'Ballad of a Thin Man', 'Goin' to Acapulco' (I couldn't find the actual clip from the movie which is still haunting me even now), and 'Pressing On' sung by Stephen Malkmus, Jim James, and John Doe of X respectively (three loves of mine as it is). It was confusing, and weird, and really made you think about much more than just Bob Dylan. I'm also probably not the first blogger to say this, but Cate Blanchett rocked the fucking casbah (although I might be the first to term it in those words exactly).

Last record - 'Phenomenon' by LL Cool J
This just fucking rocks. I listen to it all the time but still, great album to get ready to for my last night of the year.

First book of 2008 - jPod by Douglas Coupland
I told you I was obsessed. I have three other books on the go but I suspect this will be the one I finish first. It's good. Must. Read. More. Coupland.

First film of 2008 - TBC
I very nearly sat through Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo this afternoon before I realised that may not be the best way to start my year of movie geekiness. However, although the following may not yet be out, these three in particular have got me all of a quiver:

Juno
I think Micheal Cera is now old enough for me to be honest about my crush on him.


Be Kind, Rewind
The thought of this film causes me to make this noise 'YEEE'. And that's happy.


Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Marshall! Veronica! Russell! Awesome!


Plus, the usual suspects; Cloverfield, The Dark Knight, and of course, The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2.

First album of 2008 - 'Different Light' by The Bangles
On vinyl - the way God intended. I really want to expand my vinyl collection this year. At present it's modest and I want it to be obscene. I do thank little baby Jesus for the Oxfam Vinyl shop in Southampton. I even managed to pick up 'Boomania' by Betty Boo the other day - what price for greatness I hear you cry? A mere one pound and 99 bloomin' pence. Get in.

Making lists while the sun shines

I'm an ideas man. It's just what I do. I sit and I think, and I daydream and I scheme. I make plans and I write lists. I make lists in my head and then I write them down very neatly. Sometimes I'll underline the headings of these lists. I'll spend seven minutes looking for a ruler so I can make a straight line for a column I will label 'done' just so that when I have managed to complete the list items I can tick them off. Nothing makes me happier than getting to put a tick in that column. I would go as far as to say that the only reason I ever do anything at all, is to feel the sense of utter peace for that one moment in time when I know that I've fulfilled all of my tasks for that day. I love that feeling so much that I sometimes engineer it so that I add things to a list that I've already done just so I can tick them off.

Not only do I make to do lists for each day, I make lists for EVERYTHING. I write down what TV shows and albums and songs I need/want (delete as applicable) to download/buy (delete as applicable). When I'm feeling healthy I write down what meals I'm having for the week ahead so that I don't end up eating cheese sandwiches for lunch and pasta and sauce and cheese for tea seven days in a row (I love cheese but even for me, on the seventh day of insane cheese marathons like that, I get a little tired of it). I make lists for food shopping, clothes shopping, and odds'n'sods shopping. You get the general idea yeah? As tragic as it sounds, list-making is just an integral part of who I am.

However, last night I surprised even myself. I literally made the mother of all lists. All my list training finally came into play and I really pulled out the stops to go all in for Team Sazz (the membership of which amounts to one) and planned the next year or so of my life. It was liberating and scary and made me feel a million times better. See, since I relinquished my student status I haven't really thought about these things. I've done everything within my power to make schemes that allow me to put off thinking about these things, drinking wine and smoking weed and applying to do masters degrees. You know, the usual. Now I've been kicked into gear thanks to an evening in a beer garden in Old Portsmouth. An evening where I was stone-cold sober and the other two were drunk and I wasn't even the focus of the conversation (imagine!). What I wanted to do by the end of that evening was run away very far and very fast - not because of the company I was in you understand, more because we'd spent hours discussing what life is, what relationships mean, and what you would do if you could do anything in that moment. For reasons unclear to me, my overwhelming urge was to go get a bag of mushrooms and a bag of weed and find a hotel that screamed 'faded glamour' and stay up all night getting high.

But I didn't do that. I went home to bed and took off my make up and let the black dog onto my bed so she could curl into my legs and make those funny dream noises that dogs make all the while wondering to myself .. why didn't I run away and go and do something stupid and impetuous just for the fun of it? Why do I never take the least sensible option? You should be cultivating a drug addiction and living in some squalid squat and falling in love with traveling poets. That's the sort of thing people who live life with abandon do, that's the sort of thing the characters in the books you love do, why can't you be the sort of person that moves to Tijuana carrying nothing but a sketchpad and a hammock just for the sake of it?

Then, paradoxically, considering I had just spent an hour beating myself up for always being too cautious I found I had a heavy pain in my chest and an overwhelming sense of regret... why did you buy that ridiculous, impractical, difficult to drive car? It may look cool but you're never going to be certain of it starting in the mornings [you can't overestimate how much serenity you get from that knowledge]. I was so happy when I bought it not less than 10 hours before. Now I felt trapped by it... I have no money. I have no job. I can't afford petrol to put in a car let alone a car itself... what the fuck are you doing with yourself?

Times like these I need order and control.

This is where the lists come in.

Which is when I started thinking about the sort of life I want to live and who I want to be and how I'm going to achieve all that. And I mean really thinking about it. Somewhere between exams finishing and moving back home I forgot all the things that I wanted to do. Well, less forgot and more ignored. It's too exhausting following your dreams. There are too many things that can go wrong. Plus, if you decide on a certain path then you feel obligated to tell people these dreams whenever they may inquire as to what it is you intend to do to stop wasting you look like a cunt. Again. (Trust me, having changed my mind approximately 17 times in the last six months about how I'm spending the next year, I know this feeling oh-so well).

Anyway. 'The List'. I'm feeling pretty confident about it. Once I've made my mind up about something I have a tendency to just get on with it (c.f: job, car, degree). It just has to be something I really really want to happen (rather than something I'm convincing myself I want to happen) and I just have to make sure I don't end up procrastinating or getting paralysed with fear that I'll never be able to get on and tick all those boxes.

I really don't hate you enough to intimately detail 'The List's' contents but I will, however, tell you this much...

• It is a full two-year plan sub-divided by:
  - ultimate aims
  - monthly goals
  - daily 'to do's'
  

• It requires three different A5 notebooks all of which tackle a different area of the 'Improving Sazz Plan'.
  
  
• Finally, the whole spirit of 'The List' enterprise is primarily very simple: Stop being a dick. (There's no tick box for this particular goal but that's what was motivating me at the back of my mind. 'Just, seriously, don't be such a dick to people anymore. It doesn't help anyone least of all yourself.')
  

However, maybe I should have put this on my daily 'to do's' as the warm rush of generosity towards humanity lasted all of one day. One day of being interested in, and interesting in front of, other people all so I could come home not despising myself... but then today we 'went live' at the call centre.

How did I react?

I became a dick. I found it physically impossible to make idle chit-chat with my new colleagues. Yesterday I was actually doing all right at it. Me! The person who has a deep seated fear of chatting rubbish with people I have nothing in common with! I spoke and I laughed and I was, you know, kind of an okay person.

Turns out I have have enough energy to do that for 7 hours, no more, no less (well, probably less). But I'm going to try 'not being a dick' again tomorrow. It feels nicer to be someone that's accepted by a group instead of the 'weird girl'. I should have learned that by now and yet I keep needing to get reminders. Such is the curse of the person who lives their life being a dick.